9/ A New York Thing to Say (Story, Part IV)

“Solution?” He sounded a little breathless.

“Well, yeah.”  I was starting to get impatient with his lack of enthusiasm.

“Sandy.”  He said my name the same way again, but before I could say his, he went on.

“Tell me this.”  He paused and I waited. “Have you ever killed anyone before?”

“Well, not a person per se,” I replied, pleased with myself for knowing how to use per se properly. “But I’ve slaughtered a lot of chickens and pigs. Pigs are pretty smart, by the way. I had one as a pet when I was little. But I got over that pet stuff. Growing up on the farm, you see a lot of blood flowing. I don’t think I’d have a problem.”

He didn’t respond. Stockbrokers are used to giving things a lot of thought. I waited a moment.

“Eric, you know how we always say it would be nice if I could go hear you play at Sweet P’s?”

8/ A New York Thing to Say (Story, Part III)

Eric turned and stared at me.

“Sandy.”  He said it like it was a complete sentence, so I answered him the same way.

“Eric.”  I looked in his eyes and smiled. I loved to do that.

He blinked first. “Sandy, we haven’t even had sex.”

Well, if that wasn’t a New York thing to say!  I had to laugh.

“I know, silly. That makes it perfect. No one knows about our relationship because there’s no relationship to know about, at least not the kind anyone can see. So who would suspect me?”

He didn’t reply, but I could tell he was thinking it over. So I went on. “The regulars in the Square see us on our bench every Tuesday night after class, but all they know is that we talk for a while and then go our separate ways. Because that’s all we do. The cops would have no motive, Eric. So this is the perfect solution.”

7/ A New York Thing to Say (Story, Part II)

Thank God we had TV on the farm. I watched every show filmed in New York, especially the cop shows. I loved the cop shows. It made me mad when I found out some of them were really made in LA, with only certain scenes shot in my city.

I read every New York writer I could get my hands on. I dreamed of meeting Jimmy Breslin someday, making him laugh, and maybe sitting at a round table at the Algonquin, breathing the air that Dorothy Parker breathed. Going to New York, staying there, living there, becoming a New Yorker, meant everything to me.

Eric was the New York man. A Wall Street executive by day, he played bass at a jazz club on Wednesday nights. We met at a MIDI composition class at NYU. Eric was 40 to my 22, but that didn’t matter. It just meant he’d had more time to become as sophisticated as the beautiful city he called home. I called it home now too. 

6/ A New York Thing to Say (Story, Part I)

It was the usual sort of evening in Washington Square when I suggested to Eric that I kill his wife.

Taxis blew their horns on Fifth Avenue. Two Russians near our bench engaged in a loud chess match. Some old men played a card game in another language. Humming loudly, a woman sat on the ground, picking at her bare feet. A couple of aging hippies sat in silence, moving small stones around a board. A skinny guy strummed and sang on the grass, and another guitar could be heard not far away. The effect was a little discordant, but you wouldn’t think so if you understood Washington Square and New York City.

I understood both very well. The Square was everything I loved about New York, and New York was everything I’d wanted it to be back when I was wasting my talents on a dirt road in Wisconsin.

5/ The Young Man on the Bicycle

It happened so quickly, but I remember how clean-cut he looked, how collegiate. I was in my early 20’s, and he appeared to be too—maybe a little younger. I was uptown for some reason, standing in the street on Madison Avenue, trying to hail a cab to get home. It was late in the day, but still light, so it must have been one of the warmer months. And I know I wasn’t wearing a jacket. He was on a bicycle, appearing suddenly in my peripheral vision on the left. As he passed me, without slowing down he reached out and grabbed my breast.

A little thing, some might think, but I was tearful in the cab on the way home. How many other women did he do this to? Did he keep score? Did he hide his habit from his fellow students and/or co-workers? Or did he brag? Did he marry and have children? Did he become a teacher? A lawyer? A judge?

4/ Halloween Story, the Last Part

The baby. You’ll go check on the baby. You can’t remember if they told you if it’s a boy or a girl. Why is it getting hard to remember things? The hum is louder upstairs. Which room is the baby in? The first two doors open to empty darkness. You go on, clinging to the anticipation of baby warmth, little body curled in sleep, blanket-sleepered bottom in the air.

Finally, a room with a night light. A crib stands in the center, a little mound under the blanket. But the room is frigid, the crib rail like ice under your fingers. The hum is so loud you can feel it in your chest. You turn down the blanket to find a pillow underneath. And beneath the pillow . . . there is no baby. Just a few large bones.

You tear down the stairs, beginning to sob. A phone! You grab one of those red phones. You’ll call 911 and then run out the door as fast as you can. You put the receiver to your ear, but instead of a dial tone, a voice speaks, deeply pleased and chilling: “I’ve been waiting for you.”

3/ Halloween Story, Part III

An unwelcome thought takes root and grows. You didn’t pay attention to the route the couple took to get here, and you don’t even know what they look like. They picked you up wearing Halloween costumes. You thought it was odd they were both dressed as Death. You asked how they could see through those black hoods to drive, but they just chuckled. The man said his name was Dolph.

I can’t stand this place, you think. It’s so weird! You find yourself pacing the downstairs and searching the blank darkness outside the windows for a light, any kind of light. You left a note for your parents, letting them know you were babysitting, but you gave no names, no address. You can’t remember where your parents said they’d be. Your friends are probably all out trick-or-treating.

2/ Halloween Story, Part II

Thinking about a snack, you head for the kitchen. The refrigerator is stainless steel, huge, expensive, and empty. One small glass jar sits on a shelf, its contents black and forbidding. The rest of the fridge is bare. What do these people eat? you wonder. And how do they afford all this? What do they do?

You realize how little you know about the couple who hired you. When they called, you were grateful for something to do. Your parents were out at a Halloween party, and didn’t want you trick-or-treating because you were getting over a cold. Tonight’s temperature had dropped down to 22 degrees. The woman on the phone said her name was Eva somebody—Brown, maybe?—and her neighbor had given her your name. She didn’t say which neighbor. She didn’t mind that you had a cold.

1/ A Small Serial Story Called Halloween

The house had seemed so stunningly sophisticated when you first arrived, with its vast spaces, tall white walls and acres of black carpeting. But now, like everything else about this babysitting experience, the house is just so uncomfortably unfamiliar. And noisy! At first you blamed the scratching sounds on trees—it had to be branches scraping against the windows—but later you remember no trees surround this house on top of a bare hill.

And now the hum. A threatening hum, as if too much electricity coursed through the house. It’s beginning to drive you nuts. You need a TV on—any channel—or a stereo, but you don’t see either downstairs. They don’t watch TV, you think, but they must like to talk on the phone. In the living room sit four old-fashioned looking phones, red ones, with the dial on the base.

31/ One More Dream Visit

Fifteen years after my mother-in-law died, she knocked at my door in a dream. I cried as I hugged her. She wanted very much to thank me, so fervently, for all the letters I sent when she was far away in a nursing home. I wrote often, even after her daughter told me to stop because “you’re wasting your time.”

30/ Israeli Song With Frame Drum

Three weeks ago I'd never heard of a frame drum, but now I own one. Because of nerve damage in both hands (separate injuries) I'll never play really well. But I'm so drawn to it that I used Amazon points to order a daf (a larger drum with rings suspended on the inside) from Turkey. YouTube is my patient teacher.